Elegy for a Literate Dog
by Ariadne Bassarid
Summary: Love letters are useless, and Jounouchi knows it. So why would he bother trying to write one? [SetoxJoey, KaiJou]


**Author's Note/Disclaimer:**  I don't own Yu Gi Oh, William Carlos Williams' "This is just to say" or Percy Shelly's "Ozymandias".  Jounouchi's poem is my own, so please, please don't reproduce it without my permission.

* * *

Jounouchi lay on his bed and stared at his ceiling. It was a pretty standard ceiling - white, mostly clean, inset lights - but it had managed to captivate him for the past twenty minutes. At the moment he had one arm resting lightly on his stomach, the other bent up with his hand behind his head, and the opposite leg casually bent in response. Every now and then he would shuffle restlessly, causing the paper to stir.

There were a good dozen lined sheets crumpled around him. It was almost a paper nest. Definitely a paper mess. Jounouchi sighed and just then, Shizuka walked past the door.

His sister walked past once, glancing in, and then a moment later slowly stepped backwards and into view once again. She stared at her brother for a moment, as if trying to decide whether to say something to him. Eventually she shook her head and went back to whatever it was she was doing. Probably getting ready for her date with Honda.

She didn't approve of the letter. He'd told her about it yesterday when she'd threatened to keep him from eating any of her chicken catchatori. It had been sitting on the table, exhuding the most mouth-watering, slightly spicy, tomato smell. She said he'd been acting funny lately and she wanted to know why...

So he couldn't keep his mouth shut when food was involved - unless he was actually chewing. Was that a crime?

The funny thing was, Jou didn't really approve of the love letter, either. He snorted, thinking about it. It had been a dumb idea to begin with, but he was at the end his rope. A desperate man. Every day he saw Kaiba was like - like feeling the sweltering heat of hades smothering him. Maybe he should tell the smug CEO _that_. He could just see it now.

_Dear Kaiba,_

_You're like hell. Thoroughly evil. Eternally punishing. You make me hot under the collar - you're infuriating. You're damn hot, yourself. And worst of all, you just plain make me hot. _

_Love, Katsuya Jounouchi._

He started to laugh. Okay, maybe that wasn't the best approach. Kaiba would probably take it for a joke. But hell, nothing he'd written so far was working.

Shizuka was back. She leaned on the door frame. "What's so funny?" She seemed a little concerned by his mild hysteria.

Probably because he had to be batshit crazy to be attracted to Seto Kaiba in the first place. The guy acted like he ruled the town with an iron fist - and he acted like he had a heart made of the same cold metal. But then, that was the point of Jou confessing in a letter. He did _not _intend to sign it 'Love, Jounouchi,' despite how amusing that might - if kidding around. He didn't say it was 'love', afterall. He just couldn't stop thinking about the bastard. Maybe if he could see Kaiba read his letter, he'd at least find out if the tall brunette could feel.

You know, feelings other than condescension and annoyance.

"... Uh, Jou?"

"Huh? Oh, nothing, Sis." Jounouchi propped himself up on his elbow to talk to her.

"...Right. Are you sure that... "

"Well..." Jou frowned. "No, it's coming out all wrong. But I'll keep trying, I guess."

Shizuka shook her head, her pretty auburn hair getting a little mussed as she did. "It'll be your funeral."

Jounouchi's frown deepened. "I'll be fine."

His sister tugged absently at the pink sweater she was wearing, and took a step into the room. "I don't mean to be negative, big brother, I just think... Well, I mean, I'd like to think Kaiba was capable of returning your feelings, but I just don't think it's very likely, and I don't want you to get hurt, okay?"

He narrowed his eyes. The don't-want-you-to-get-hurt speech, huh? Wasn't that his job? Speaking of which... "Where's Honda taking you tonight?"

Shizuka rolled her eyes, but a smile crept onto her face. "I dunno, the movies I guess."

When Jounouchi opened his mouth to do give his usual caution against one of his best friends, his sister talked over him.

"I'll see you later, Jou! Don't melt your brain or anything while I'm gone, ok? I left you a chicken sandwich in the fridge." She disappeared out of his bedroom, and a few moments later he heard her footsteps hurrying down the stairs. She was probably getting sick of his worrying. Well, he knew how Honda thought better than anyone else... Which gave him pretty good reason to worry.

Anyway, if she wanted him to stop fussing, she just ought to stop dating. Heh.

Jou flopped backwards onto his bed again, turning his mind back to the problem he could actually do something about. Probably. Maybe. Hopefully. Gimme a break.

_You're the first thing I think of in the morning and the last thing at night _was more than a little clichéd. It didn't matter how true or untrue it might be. It just plain sounded bad, and Kaiba probably heard it from his fangirls on a daily basis. _I can't stop thinking about you_ was silly, _I like you_ was far too succinct. _I want to ravish your incredibly attractive body_, while accurate, was probably a little forthright, and _I want to have your baby_ was anatomically impossible.

Jou sat up - causing yet another mini-avalanche of paper around him - and cast his eyes around the room in faint hope of inspiration. Maybe Shizuka was right. Maybe he ought to give up. He had little-to-no chance of avoiding sounding like the idiot Kaiba seemed to think he was. Love letters were _designed _to make people sound idiotic. They were totally - Jounouchi's eyes landed on the tome of Shakespeare that they were being forced to study in English.

Hmm. Now there was an idea. Not Shakespeare. I mean, Jou had nothing against Shakespeare anyway, he actually found it pretty simple. It was only words - but then, so was his love letter. Still, Shakespeare's sonnets were a little high-flown for his purpose. Plus, if he gave one to Kaiba, Kaiba's gigantic brain would have no trouble at all linking the anonymous letter to someone in their class or their grade.

But a poem. Now that had potential. He wanted, afterall, to catch the CEO's interest. Kaiba had to have some curiosity. Jounouchi started to grin. All he needed to do was find the right poem and reel Kaiba in. It didn't even have to be a love poem.

Perfect.

Jou leapt off the bed and grabbed his black jacket and his housekeys. He was off to the library.

* * *

On Monday morning when Seto Kaiba opened his locker, a thin sheet of folded, white paper slid out and fell by his chunky black boots. He narrowed his eyes. There were school rules about leaving letters in Seto Kaiba's locker. Mostly because KaibaCorp funded the entire computing department for Domino High, and Kaiba's demand in return had been that any rabid fangirl who left stalked him on schoolgrounds would face expulsion. It was enough to keep even the crazier ones away, thankfully.

Although Valentine's Day was always hell.

Kaiba sighed and bent down to pick it up, whatever it was. As he read it, a frown appeared on his lips. Right.

_This Is Just to Say_

_I have eaten_

_the plums_

_that were in_

_the icebox_

_-_

_and which _

_you were probably_

_saving_

_for breakfast_

_-_

_Forgive me_

_they were delicious_

_so sweet_

_and so cold _

_- William Carlos Williams._

Interesting. He was already familiar with the poem, though he hadn't read much else by Williams. He didn't devote much time to poetry. He had more important things to do.

Speaking of which, he had to get to class and send an email to a boardmember before it commenced. Kaiba seized the relevant books out of his locker and then clanged it shut again. That left him standing juggling the books, his briefcase with his laptop inside, and the paper. He stared at the last item for a moment. He could just throw it away. But it was interesting... Someone had obviously intended it to be interesting, too. The question was, who?

He re-folded the paper, and slid the poem inside the front his physics textbook. He'd think about that later. If it was even worth thinking about.  There was only one person in this school he'd even consider wasting his time on, no matter what people might leave in his locker.

* * *

In an English class a few weeks later, Jounouchi stared at Kaiba's rigid back. It was impressive posture, really. He watched as the taller boy shrugged off his school jacket. It was unusually hot for springtime - apparently Kaiba was subject to temperature change, like everyone else. Suddenly the object of his attention twisted in its chair.

"What?" he said, bluntly.

Jou stared into those pale blue eyes. Kaiba had such long, pretty lashes. ...Better squash that thought. "Nothin'."

He noticed that Kaiba was wearing the top buttons of his shirt undone, and two black cords were lying just inside the white fabric. The first trailed down out of sight - probably the DuelMonsters card/locket Kaiba always wore. The second cord had a small silver dragon on the end. Kaiba sighed and ran one hand through his brown hair.

Geez, could you blame the fangirls?

"It's too hot for this, mutt. Quit staring at me like I'm some kind of car bumper you want to set your teeth into."

Jounouchi's face changed expression. He struggled to make it an appropriately grumpy one; one to match Kaiba's devastating scowl. What an unfortunate choice of words. Maybe Kaiba knew it. Maybe he was just teasing him. When Jou failed to reply, the brunette sighed again, the epitome of bored irritation, and turned back around in his chair.

Jou stifled a groan and put his head down on his desk. He knew he was getting to the CEO. He had to be. He was even having a reasonable amount of fun doing it. Kaiba hadn't noticed yet that as he opened his locker to find another typed poem, he was being watched from down the hall by vigilant, honey-coloured eyes.

When he'd seen Kaiba react... Okay, not favourably. But he didn't smirk and rip the Williams poem up, so Jounouchi counted that as a positive response. When he'd seen that Kaiba had reacted with not-grumpiness (whatever emotion it actually _was _was questionable, though Jou chose to believe it was the curiosity he was aiming for), the CEO had suddenly been sporadically inundated with poetry. At first, none of it was particularly romantic. Some of it was downright funny to give.

There was that day last week when Kaiba had been a real asshole to one of their teachers - calculus class. Apparently Kaiba had got sick of stating his ongoing amazement that Jounouchi would attempt calculus - what, like he was an idiot? - and had turned on their teacher. She'd almost burst into tears at his cold remarks. And the more flustered she got, the more mistakes she kept making on the board.

Joey had started arguing with the object of his infatuation right then and there, but that had only landed him a detention warning. He'd decided to retaliate in a more constructive way. He assumed Kaiba was more than smart enough to get the subtle point Jou was making by leaving Shelley's Ozymandias:

_I met a traveler from an antique land_

_Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone_

_Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,_

_Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,_

_And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,_

_Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,_

_Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,_

_The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,_

_And on the pedestal these words appear:_

_"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:_

_Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"_

_Nothing beside remains. Round the decay_

_Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare_

_The lone and level sands stretch far away._

And apparently, he had. Seto Kaiba, the calculating, harsh, intimidating, dominating CEO of KaibaCorp, immune to the attention of countless swooning teenage girls and the glares of anyone he pissed off (which was no short list)... Had read the poem. And laughed.

It had been a harsh bark of a laugh. Jou grinned at the memory - and _he _was the dog. In fact it had scared more than a few of the students in the school corridor. Unused to the sight of Kaiba being amused by _anything_, they'd fled as quickly as possible. Probably scared he was about to snap or something.

The next day Ms Taichiban had been wearing what appeared to be a very expensive pair of pearl earrings. She was smiling a lot. Which wasn't necessarily to mean that Kaiba had actually done something _nice_ for someone else. That was highly dubious. Ludicrous, even. He'd probably been pressured by the school board to do something towards appeasing Taichiban.

But it was a possibility. Surely Seto Kaiba, of all people, could really appreciate the message that power was fleeting. So okay, Jou's little literary foray was garnering some interesting results. Kaiba hadn't reacted unfavourably. Jou hadn't been expelled for stalking the moneybags.

Jounouchi lifted his head to check that their English teacher was still dissecting the language of Sonnet 43 for those less inclined to understand the poems easily. She was. Next to Jou, Yuugi looked half asleep in his chair. Ryou, fortunate enough to be across the class, was staring out the window. Lately they only paid enough attention in English to be able to tease Joey about poetry in general, after he'd told them about his unfortunate attraction to Kaiba.

Kaiba himself appeared to still be paying attention, though it was likely that 'appeared' was the operative word in that observation.

After Ozymandias, Jounouchi had decided to take his scheme to the next level. It made his stomach flipflop, but he'd stopped leaving Kaiba poems about Life, the Universe and Everything and started leaving... Well... Love notes. He grimaced. And today he intended to leave another one.

One that he'd written.

Shizuka and the others may have been right. It was going to be his funeral.

"Katsuya Jounouchi, are you SLEEPING?" his teacher suddenly demanded.

Jou's head shot up off the desk. "Wha? No!"

A few giggles came from the back of the class. Yuugi was looking at him and shaking his own head. Suddenly Yuugi's expression froze.

"It certainly _looked_ like you were. What did I just say?"

Oh great. He hadn't been sleeping - that didn't mean he was listening.

While Joey was standing and reading the next sonnet aloud for the class as his punishment - all the while thinking sucks to you, teach, I can actually pronounce these words... _and_ read lines with the pauses in the right places - Yuugi tossed a note onto his desk. And when he sat down and read it, Jounouchi nearly fell out of his chair.

_I think you caused a rip in the fabric of reality. Kaiba just smiled. You know, before he realised what he was doing and wiped it off his face._

* * *

Kaiba prepared to unleash an almighty glare on whomever had just bumped into him and caused him to drop his briefcase. He turned around and stared at the culprit.

Jounouchi was standing there, ruefully rubbing his shoulder. His school uniform was dishevelled, as usual, the sleeves pushed up in the warm weather. It was almost admirable, the way he never seemed to care about his appearance. Not that the blonde needed much care, considering he was still too damn attractive for his own good. Or, more accurately, for Kaiba's good.

"No running in the corridors, Mutt."

A flash sparked behind Jou's warm honey eyes. "What're you, now, a prefect?"

It was so easy to get Jounouchi going. And, albeit a tad sadistic, a lot of fun. "No - they did offer, but I turned them down. You'd probably get expelled if someone like me could write you up for every offence."

Jounouchi's hand curled into an annoyed fist. Unfortunately for Jou, as it did so it crunched, and Kaiba looked down and noticed the white piece of paper in it. Kaiba glanced down at his feet, where his briefcase had plonked onto its spine. His laptop seemed a little worse for wear. More importantly, the open briefcase was exposing twenty pieces of paper, quite similar to the one in the mutt's hand. He looked up again slowly.

Jounouchi tossed his sun-kissed hair defiantly. "School's finished for the day. Anyway, I had somewhere to be."

"Is that so?"

"Yes, _that's so_, moneybags, now if you'll - "

"That somewhere wouldn't happen to be my locker, would it, Jounouchi?" Kaiba said evenly.

The mutt's eyes narrowed. "...Whaddya mean, if someone like you could write me up?" he said evasively. "Someone like _what_?"

Kaiba stepped backwards and bent down to gather up his new poetry collection. He clicked the briefcase shut. "Someone with such an obvious grudge against you," he said, smoothly.

Jounouchi cracked a nervous grin. "And why would someone with such an obvious grudge against me care if I got expelled?"

Kaiba chose that moment, as he was standing back up again, to leave the briefcase on the floor and reach out, ripping the questionable leaf out of Jounouchi's hand.

"Hey! That's mine!"

Kaiba easily avoided the blonde's flailing attempts to grab it back. "I can see that."

"So give it here, already - you might own half the school, but you don't own that." Jounouchi's hand swept out again.

Kaiba put his own free hand flat on the blonde's chest and pushed him backwards into the nearest locker. He kept his hand there, applying only a small amount of pressure on Jounouchi's warm chest, as he unfolded and read the sheet of paper. It was handwritten. Jounouchi ceased his struggling while Kaiba wasn't looking at him and stood very still under the hand.

Cravings

like a violin string junkie

what what what is wrong

with me today?

-

I remember eating breakfast

in the morning after -

it was black jam on burnt toast,

with the margarine slathered

the way you like it -

climbing out of bed,

eating breakfast on the couch

and watching loud loud cartoons

-

nothing accounts for this nervousness

but the idea

that maybe you will fuck me

or maybe you will drop me -

either way I need some release.

Kaiba flicked his eyes back up to Jounouchi's face. It was flushed. He was aware that by comparison, his own gaze seemed emotionless. It usually was, afterall... He only seemed to lose that small degree of self-control around the attractive duellist. Right now he was pleased to keep his cool.

"There's no author listed."

The mutt glanced downward and mumbled something.

"What? Bad mutt: speak."

Jounouchi's eyes snapped back up and glared straight into Kaiba's. "I wrote it," he squeezed out through his clenched teeth.

And suddenly, for once in his life, Kaiba couldn't control the brief look of surprise that crossed his face. "I didn't know dogs could read, let alone write," he said, before he could stop himself.

Jounouchi's own face crumpled into a scowl. Kaiba let him shove away the hand that had been lying on the rather nice chest - but when Jounouchi attempted to push away from the locker, Seto blocked his path. They were standing very close together, he noted. Jounouchi was breathing a little hard, and Kaiba could almost taste the minty gum Jou must have been chewing.

"You know," Kaiba said in his carefully nonchalant tone, "I had been thinking about how whatever girl was leaving me these notes - " Jounouchi pulled a face - "was going to be awfully disappointed when I told her the reason I don't respond to fangirls is that I don't find them at all attractive."

Jounouchi only had time to blink before Kaiba closed the small distance between them and crushed their mouths together. Kaiba bit against Jounouchi's lower lip and then darted his tongue into the other's mouth. He felt Jou, pressed against the locker, give a small groan, and then Kaiba pulled away.

* * *

Jounouchi, rather dazed, stared into Kaiba's face. The bastard seemed perfectly composed. Meanwhile, all of the nerve endings in Jou's body felt like they were tingling.

"See you tomorrow... Jou," Kaiba murmured, and then turned, picked up his briefcase, and walked down the empty school corridor.

Jounouchi slumped back against the locker, a grin on his face. The others had been right all along. He was dead. He was in heaven.


End file.
